Prologue It was a strange day today in the small town of Maccana. The trees were all covered in white sheets of snow. The ground was so full of snow that you couldn’t see the road. My mother told me that this was not a good sign. I laughed at her and wagged my tail as I placed my paws on the snow. I regretted it when I touched the cold snow because I fell into it and passed out. I knew that sleeping was the stupidest idea I could ever have but I’m a wolf so I’ve had stupider ideas. By the time I woke up my mother assumed I was dead so I slowly clawed my way to the surface, gasping for air. My cognitive functions weren’t working right now due to hypothermia and dehydration. When I finally gathered enough wits I realized that I was being watched. “What do you want?†I snarled at the wolf watching me. The wolf was a female, no older than forty-five. She was also about to have a family pretty soon. Suddenly I heard a strange gurgling sound so I ran away from the sound. Chapter One A mother told her daughter that she got a new job across the country which meant that they would be moving. Tears poured from the girl's eyes when she said that, and she quickly ran outside the door. She didn't know where she was going, but she did know that she wasn't moving. She never realized how cold it gets during the winter, but at this point, she didn't care. She continued running until her foot got caught in a branch and she slipped. She fell for what seemed like hours before she landed in a nearby river. Her head smacked against a rock which caused her to pass out from the brain damage. The last thing she remembered was seeing the dead tree before she fell. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- I could hear a bloodcurdling scream not too far from my current location, which caused the hair on the back of my neck to stick up. The scream was then replaced by the distinct sound of snapping, which caused me to slowly walk in that direction. I couldn't tell which direction the sound was coming from, so I heightened my hearing by deluding all my other senses to make the sound much sharper. Once the faint sound was sharper, I ran towards the sound, and I stopped dead in my tracks when I was hit by the smell of death. My instinct was to run away from the putrid smell of death, but I was curious as to who or what the smell was coming from, so I slowly edged toward the smell. When I got close enough that I could see where the smell was coming from, I let out a small yelp when I saw what had happened. The smell came from a human girl who was probably in her late teens, and the girl appeared to have smacked her head on a rock which caused her to drown. I could see the invisible strands of the girl's spirit, so I followed the spirit, guiding it to wherever it is that humans go to after death.
